Viacheslav and Larysa Briukhovetsky speak at Shevchenko Society (04/06/03)

Viacheslav and Larysa Briukhovetsky speak at Shevchenko Society

by Dr. Orest Popovych

NEW YORK - Higher education and cinematography in Ukraine may seem like unrelated subjects, but they blended seamlessly when presented jointly by the husband and wife duo of Dr. Viacheslav and Prof. Larysa Briukhovetska to a capacity audience at the Shevchenko Scientific Society (NTSh) on March 1. Dr. Briukhovetsky, the president of the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy (KMA), traced the remarkable history of that august institution, with the aid of a film in which KMA students played the main part. Prof. Briukhovetska related how the new Ukrainian magazine Kino-Teatr was spawned by the students in her cinematography classes at the KMA.

In introducing the program, Dr. Larissa Onyshkevych, the president of NTSh in America, hailed both speakers as examples of how much one dedicated person can accomplish in his or her chosen field - Dr. Briukhovetsky as the founder of the reborn KMA and Prof. Briukhovetska as the founder of the only Ukrainian magazine devoted to cinema and theater. Then the proceedings were taken over by Prof. Vasyl Makhno, who introduced the speakers and ran the rest of the program.

In his talk "Kyiv Mohyla Academy - a Fortress of Ukrainian Spirit," Dr. Briukhovetsky recalled how the declaration of Ukraine's independence in 1991 led to the rebirth of the KMA, which had been closed by the Russians in 1817. By 1994, the KMA had acquired the status of a national university, comprising the departments of humanities, sciences, social sciences, law, economics and information science.

Today some 2,500 students attend the KMA, vying for a range of degrees, from bachelor's to doctor degrees. There is also a department designed to prepare potential applicants for admission to the university. Similar preparatory programs exist at 13 collegiums established throughout Ukraine. The KMA has also established three daughter institutions - the Academies at Ostroh and Mykolaiv and the University of Humanities.

An educational system of such magnitude exacts inordinate demands on one's time, said Dr. Briukhovetsky, acknowledging that 90 percent of his accomplishments he owed to his wife, herself a tireless worker in the field of Ukrainian culture. No wonder, noted Dr. Briukhovetsky cheerfully, that a new encyclopedia has referred to him as "the husband of Larissa Briukhovetska."

After this introduction, Prof. Briukhovetska stepped up to the podium and acquainted the audience with the status of Ukrainian cinema in general and the magazine Kino-Teatr in particular. The magazine, of which she is the chief editor, was launched in 1994 on the initiative of students in her cinematography class at the KMA, who received for it a grant from the Renaissance Foundation. Its first few issues were written by the students, who were gradually supplanted by more authoritative authors.

Today, Kino-Teatr, an attractive illustrated magazine, publishes six issues a year, featuring interviews with actors, authors, producers and directors, as well as general information on the world of motion pictures and theater. Its editors organize roundtable discussions on subjects of interest, such as cruelty and violence on the screen, attend conferences and publish books. Prof. Biukhovetska presented to the NTSh library one of these books, "Poetic Cinema - the Forbidden School," which was compiled by her and published in Kyiv by Kino-Teatr jointly with Art-Ek.

The highlight of the program was the premiere of an informative artistic film about the KMA, shown here ahead of its first showing scheduled for Kyiv. Produced by Svitlana Zinovyeva and heavily staffed with KMA students, the film opens with a scene where the students are washing the statue of Hryhorii Skovoroda, the 18th century Ukrainian philosopher, in an act symbolizing the cleansing of today's Ukraine. Then viewers are guided through a dream-like sequence in which the history of the KMA is traced from its inception as the Kyiv Epiphany Brotherhood School in 1615, which was elevated to the Kyiv Mohyla Academy in 1632 by Metropolitan Petro Mohyla.

In the film, students move about on stilts through library stacks, campus grounds and past the portraits of KMA founders, benefactors and famous alumni. They are guided by a mysterious Kozak figure, who asks probing questions about books and learning, exhorting the students to make use of both. The Kozak introduces an array of names and faces of famous people who were associated with the KMA, such as teachers, scholars and students, including a long list of hetmans who were either KMA benefactors, or alumni, or both. In the 17th-18th centuries, the KMA was the leading institution of higher learning in Ukraine, so that the list of people associated with it reads like a who is who among the Ukrainian elite of that period.

Once the plot arrives at the contemporary period, the surrealism gives way to reality and, in a role reversal, the modern students begin to mentor the Kozak. Now Dr. Briukhovetsky appears time and again, addressing the students as their mentor and father figure. The applicants to KMA are shown taking the entrance exam, which is an objective, multiple-choice test (actually called "test" in Ukrainian), that is machine-graded. Those lucky ones who are admitted take the traditional KMA oath. Eventually comes the graduation, where at the commencement exercises we spot among the crowd of graduates the face of our familiar Kozak, wearing his cap and gown. In the final act, the KMA building is seen growing and growing in leaps, until it reaches the sky.

Today, the Kyiv Mohyla Academy is being referred to as the "Ukrainian Harvard," but we look forward to the day when a Frenchman will refer to the Sorbonne as the "French Kyiv-Mohyla Academy," concluded Dr. Briukhovetsky.

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